Speaking a Different Language

There are huge groups of people travelling together – like the French Canadians on board who have come under the auspices of the CAA.  That is a wonderful way to travel – The Canadian Automobile Association makes the arrangements and the only like-minded qualifications is that a person wants to go around South America.  There is also a big group of German-speaking people on board, some Swiss.  Well, the bottom line is people from 47 different countries.  Now here is one of the tricks of the voyages.  The head waiter has to find a way to get all of these people at dining tables where everyone speaks the same language.  And the menu has to go to them in their language of choice.  And something can go wrong even when all of the above gets done correctly.  For instance, I wanted the Rasperberry Meringue, but the waiter snatched the menu from my hands and said, “Somehow by mistake you got tomorrow’s menu.” I had to begin to deliberate on today’s choices but it put me behind.

I make the mistake of speaking to people – in halls, on elevators, while climbing stairs.  I forget how multi-national the passenger list is.  And English just doesn’t work for everyone.  I really notice in the market how difficult it is when there is a language barrier.  It just doesn’t help much to say the same word slower, or louder, or over and over again.  We were shopping last night in the loveliest market.  After the organized tour, the bus guide told us that if we would come back to the main street, turn left and walk 200 metres, we would find a 3-block long market. Greg is the perfect companion for this kind of event.  He walks along beside us, waits at the stalls as we go right to the back of them. Sometimes Greg is right out on the streets, for small cones have been put out there blocking off the parking lane, to let busy shoppers pass each other stepping off the curb for a while and then back onto the streets.  Their cone-shaped devices must be their way of trying to preserve the lives of the tourists making their way up and down the streets.. 

The guide had told us during our excursion that people in Chile are allowed to have as many dogs as they wish.  Some people have 3 or 4.  They roam the streets freely. I think he was explaining to us why there were so many dogs – I saw them all over – for example, three just sleeping side by side in the crevice between the road and the curb outside of a busy shop, people stepping over and around the dogs, back out into the road, around them, back to the side-walk.  Wyona buys a cape.  I buy a colourful knitted sweater.  Greg quietly comes by each of us, takes the bags we are carrying.  We are empty handed again – able to admire the beauty of the alpaca scarves or check out tooled leather purses that have Chile written on a pocket, or embroidered into the flap of a finely woven bag.

Greg is quiet.  He pulls more money out of his wallet as we run out. He did buy himself a sandwich one day.  A sad day. Wyona’s last shopping moment in Argentina was when she wanted to buy a pitcher for her grand daughters to pour water out of this summer.  She was short of money – just the amount he had spent on the sandwich.

My highlight of the market was Wyona buying a poncho for $20.00.

“No forty,” said the vendor.

“Why?,” said Wyona, wrinkling her brow.

“Chile.  Chile.”  Then she pointed to other products in stall saying dismissively as she touched them, “Synthetic.  Uruguay. Peru.”  Then smiling and touching the shawl Wyona wanted, saying “Chile.  Chile.  $40.”

That the moment was well worth $40. 

When we got home at night, Greg asked if we could stop in Miami and go to the post office.

“What do you want to buy there?”

“I was thinking that we could stop and ship some of the items you have been buying to Calgary.”

Carrefour

Wyona spotted the Carrefour, an international chain grocery store on our way home from looking for tours. I have been having cravings for fruit and vegetables. There was only one small isle at the back which took care of both fruits and vegetables. The potatoes still had lots of dirt on them. That is a good way to know they are organic. There were only 8 mangoes for sale. No papayas. No fresh berries, though lots of grapes. I had imagined a steady diet of mangos and papayas in South America.  I was wrong.

We bought the standard oranges, apples and bananas. “We wouldn’t buy those at home,” Wyona said looking at the blemishes on all of the fruit. I reminded her that the oranges we buy at home are waxed and dyed. That makes look good to us but it doesn’t necessarily mean they are healthy for us or any better than the blemished ones.

Then Wyona wanted to go up and down all of the isles of the stores to look, as though we were shopping at home. I liked that idea so I did the isles as well. That is where I saw lots of canned vegetables. And every home must be making lots of pizza and pasta for there were large cellophane packages of oregano, turmeric, and paprika, bigger amounts than I see at home in my own grocery store. I would have to go off to the speciality Indian spice store to get packages that large.

I am not used to seeing so many shelves of alcohol in the grocery stores. There are no isles of whole grain products – mostly refined white flour. And no specialty isles where you can pick up frozen or fresh ethnic entrees and take them home. 

...green label on coke to the left...

At the check-out we saw Green Coke Labels – now that was confusing. "What is going on with the labelling," we were asking one another. Someone with limited English, (which feels like a lot of English to us, since we haven't been hearing much lately)  overheard our conversation and popped into the discussion, explaining to us that in the Green Label Coke, the sugar is natural. We don’t know what that means so I goggled it. Regular Coke: 250 calories. Green Coke: 100 calories. Diet Coke: no calories. Apparently one of the Argentinian efforts to combat obesity. 

We were remarking that at this point in our trip, it doesn’t seem to matter than very few people we meet can speak English. I wonder how it is that we are getting along. Maybe the guide books that we brought with us. And commerce can go on in markets whether people can speak the same language or not. The people who stop to talk to us are so kind. No merchants are over-bearing. As we walk along the streets we hearcambio every few steps. I don’t think hearing that word from 10 people per block on the tourist walking street would be an exaggeration, men and women, maybe 8 out of 10 men. But some women along the side doing money changing.

Some salespeople are out on the streets selling tickets to dinner and dance shows – usually  a Tango Show. I saw a woman approach Wyona, who didn’t slow down for one step to hear her pitch. The girl walked along, sideways, trying to keep up with her, trying to get eye contact, get some word out of Wyona.

 “Oh, you don’t speak,” were the girl’s final words as she dropped behind to find another tourist.

I was not that tourist. 

Arta

JeJu Island, South Korea

The travel consultant said that JeJu Island is one of the new seven wonders of the world.  Wyona looked out the window this morning and said it first.  “I can’t see much of the wonder yet.”  She said the same thing again on the walk home from the market, “Are you sure this is one of the new seven wonders of the world.”

...  a woman arranging her produce in the market ...

I saw a sign board, a low one that was using the slogan again, so I went over to take a close look.

All we have to add is one word -- that this is one of new natural wonders of the world. I have seen the posters of a fantastic natural crater and the list of the other new seven wonders.

Next time we come we are taking the City Bus Tour.

We will be back for the next part of this trip is docking here.

This morning we went to the International Market – our local currency in hand, picked up at the KeJu money exchange.

Am I not getting enough food onboard?
I can't stop myself from taking pictures like this
.Everything is amazing to me.

The literature said that JeJu is known for its tangerines. I wanted to buy one, but when we were making the sale, we couldn’t tell if I was getting 1 tangerine or one kilo for the price they were asking. Fearing it was the kilo, we moved on.

Lurene asked for a pair of squeaky shoes to be brought home for Kalina.

Wyona stopped in every shoe store in Busan looking for them, and with sign language she would ask them if they have squeaky shoes. Soon her sign language got so good that they would quickly wave their hands down and to the back, explaining that they had none of those shoes anymore.

But she hit the jackpot today – tiny pairs of squeaky shoes in all colours. Though the Korean man couldn’t understand English he knew what she was talking about. I asked her how she got the idea over to him. She claims that “squeaky” is a word that is understood in every language. I guess it is, they way that she says it.

We walked through the equivalent of Fanny’s Fabrics – so many rolls of material, and so many women in small kiosks with their sewing machines, a mat for their noon hour nap laid out by time we got there; others eating their lunch with the Korean metal chopsticks – not something that has caught on in the rest of Asia, and if you try to use them you will know why.

Food slips off of metal chopsticks, except in Korea.

socks $1 a pair ... everywhere

We stopped bargaining and Wyona and I headed for home, while Greg stayed back to explore.

We had watched where the taxi drove on the way to the market and were sure we could make it back to the ship.

The difficulty was getting across 8 lanes of traffic with no traffic light to help us – just the big wide striped zebra walk, but when we would put our toe off of the curb, no one stopped.

Two Korean mechanics came to the curb, so we side-stepped over to be behind them and when they walked we walked; when they stopped, we stopped. This is the first time I have been truly committed to walking behind a man  instead of beside him.

The men stopped mid-street to let a big 18 wheeler roll on by, so we stopped.

At the other curb Wyona ran in front of one of them to say Thank You.

She could tell by the look on his face, when he understood that we had been using them for our protection.

The man laughed, said something back to us in Korean and we continued our walk back to the ship.

Arta

PS.  We went to another onboard lecture, found out what a treasure JeJu is, and that yes, it does have the on of the new 7 wonders of the natural world.  Then, to our dismay ... we didn't get to dock there the next time.  Perhaps we will return.

The Year of the Pig in Gold

“Do not walk alone in places that are unknown to you.” That is what the sign said as I looked down a side alley off of Haiphong Road. And that is what is keeping me from doing an early morning walk all alone. So I laid here thinking about window shopping yesterday.

The gold jewellery in the window is exquisite and reminds me of the gold souks in Dubai, -- at least the amount of gold.

What makes this different is design, especially a choker necklace with the main design being a large pig, three columns of baby pigs hanging 4 deep from the sow’s underbelly. A fantastic tribute to those born in the year of the pig and the first time that I have been sad about being a dragon.

Down one isle of the Ocean Terminal Shopping Centre were a series of display cases, each holding two watching which were each circling 360 degrees, slowly, slowly and the sparkle coming off of the watches was so amazing that Greg, Wyona and I were all drawn in for a closer look.

We talked for a long time about the spectacular design, Greg finally remarking, “All of that and a watch besides.”

Wyona said of the salesmen in high end dark black suits standing near-by, “I bet those young men double as armed guards. I am going to find out the price of one of those watches.” She came back.

“Four million Hong Kong Dollars.”

That math was too hard for me even though I have been dividing every HKD price by 7 to get an idea of the cost in Canadian dollars. Having to work with six zeros at the end of some figure closed me right down for a moment. “That would be half a million dollars,” offered the salesman who had come over now to give Wyona more details on the watches on the pedestals. Exquisite beauty and a joy to look at.

We travelled on to other glass windows. In one shop, the silk skirts of the dresses were billowing, aka the famous Marilyn Monroe shot over the sidewalk grate. We searched to find where the fans were placed – in the far corners of the windows. A shop close by had large, fluffy 3-D clouds hovering down at the mid point of the window – eye-catching, though I can’t remember anything that was in the window except the clouds.

When we passed the diamond watches today, I heard the tone in Greg’s voice change to gruff. He said to Wyona, “This is the last time I will ask you. Do you want one of those watches or not. I am not bringing you back here. Either get it now or never!”

Arta

The Gold Souk

Wyona and I wanted to go to the gold souk.  At least I did.  I have been looking forward to seeing this market since I heard about it at a destinations lecture. Moiya declared that she was not in the market for gold, but she wanted to look in the shops if we were going to explore them.  David is less anxious  if he goes somewhere else.  He continues his site seeing. Hanging out in shops, shifting his weight from one leg to another while Moiya is looking at merchandise, is his idea of hell on earth.  He is happy to have her buy; he just wants to be looking at the bigger picture of the community while she shops. “

Wyona asked Greg to come along with us – this was one of the times when she needed the safety of his presence.  A man whispered something to Greg as we walked along.  I wanted to know what the conversation was about.  “Oh, he was just inviting me to come along to a back street for some Gucci watches,” Greg laughed.  The women darted in and out of shops.  Greg bought pop to keep Wyona hydrated. “No really cold,” he said.  “It looks cold because of the beads of water on the outside, but it is not cold.”  I wore out faster than Moiya and Wyona and I would go sit beside Greg who would put himself on one of the benches that lined the middle of the mall, and watch us.  “Watches?  Scarves? Bags?”, men would walk by and say to Greg.

“How many times does this happen,” I asked him.

“About once every 15 minutes,” Greg replied.  “So many times that the tourist standing kitty-corner over there has been watching and has begun to laugh each time I am approached again,” he continued.

 After a slight rest, I would continue to pop into the shops with Moiya and Wyona.  I am not used to the tinsel gleam on the 18 and 24 karat gold merchandise in spot after spot – both outside of the souk and then inside along its covered walkway. I liked to study the walls above the tops of the shops.  I could see laundry hanging above one, but back in the recesses of the ceiling where no one would ever see it.

 “What are you looking to purchase?”, the merchants will ask me.  I haven’t even thought about the categories long enough to have selected a general theme to jewellery buying.  I am overwhelmed with plastic bags of gold under counters brought out if the merchants think  I can’t find anything on the shelves or in the glass cases that I like.  The truth is, I like it all. 

And the idea of  buying gold by picking out a piece of jewellery and then having someone put it on the scale? That is anathema to me.  Wyona has told me many times that is how it was done.  Still, the surprise of that act was there for me.

Two Layers of Shoppers

Times have changed, said the shop keeper. There are now only 2 layers of travellers.  Those who have so much money that they can come into a store and buy anything they want, and those who buy the usual cheap tourist souvenirs.  The class of people who had two or three hundred dollars to spend is gone.  They were the middle class and they don’t exist in Europe anymore.  Some Canadians, Americans and Brits, but rarely do the European cruisers have that kind of money any more.

Wyona and I always look at bags, scarves and jewellery.  When Margaret’s husband said good-bye to her as she left for this holiday, one of his last words to her was, “I hope you don’t pick up any bad habits while you are gone.”  She hasn’t.  She picked up 2 scarves in Santorini and one on the boat – and that hardly counts as shopping.

“Holy Doodle”, she said when she saw the ring Wyona had purchased but and then offered to let me buy from her. Picking up a piece of jewellery is a significant investment of time; I was glad to be on the receiving end of that deal.   I just say yes. Yesterday at the end of a long day in Santorini, we stopped by some merchants who had 35 % or 50 % off of their rings and necklaces – the end of the season sale. 

Easy to tell it was the end of the season.  Many of the villas and hotels are already closed – really closed.  Plywood is nailed over their windows, no deck chairs are out, and their pools are empty. We didn’t take a ship excursion into town.  Wyona had read that if you go into the village at the other end of Fia, take the cable car to the top of the cliffs and then ride a local bus That way you can go to Oia (EE-yah) for €1.6: 4 euros up in the cable car, 4 down and 1.6 each way into town and out – a grand total of 11.2 euros for the day instead of 89 on a boat excursion.  Another significant saving would have been to walk to the top of the cliffs on the same trail that a donkey ride can also transport you to the top, the donkey ride being 4 euros – the same price as the cable car.

I can’t remember the last bus I rode where the bus fare is taken on the ride – except for those trips I take home from Sicamous and haven’t purchased a pre-paid ticket. Then I am all the way to Golden before I have to pay. Here the local ticket taker walks down the crowded isle, bills stuffed in one hand, a set of tickets he tears off in another and clenched between his hands is a set of 5 metals columns out of which he dispenses the correct change, should people give him bills.  “What do I want 30 centimes back from 3.50” said Wyona, “so I just whispered to him, ‘Keep the change.’  That is how my hand got an extra squeeze and a large smile from him.”

She did the same thing with her money to a clerk in a jewellery store in Athens.  A young 19 year old shopkeeper said to her on the street, “Come in.  I give you no hassle.” 

“No hassle?” she confirmed. 

“None ,” he said and he was true to her word.  He let her look around for more than an hour, just left her alone, though she had gathered information along the way that it was his brother’s shop (aged 32) and his uncle was somehow in the family business. 

When the bill was finally totaled up, for her it was tip time – to the younger shop keeper, even though the older brother and uncle had tried to hover around making the sale.  When he saw the size of the tip he ran to get her another “free” gift.  The tip may have been too much for him to comprehend.

Arta

Loading a Ship with Food at Civitavecchia, Italy

When the thrusters on the boat had quieted down this morning, and I was finally awake, I slipped out in the dark of the balcony to see what the port looked like.  Below me was a white van, the back of it already open and a dog was tied up to a fence nearby.  A local food vendor, I thought, getting the back and side of his van ready for a local snack to entice the first passengers who would disembark before they had breakfast onboard.  



I left and went up to deck 12, the walking track, and did my first mile and half of the week, since I haven’t been feeling that well this whole trip.  Five laps are a mile.  I walked eight and then checked out the hot tub, which I haven’t done yet either, finding out how to get a towel and which tubs were the jacuzzis and which, just hot tubs.  I had to sort out where the showers were, where to put my clothes – all of that--  kind of hard work for a newbie.  I picked up some fruit on the way past the restaurant to bring back to our new home away from home, and I wondered if I would run into Greg and Wyona before they left for Rome.  She was in the room and we chatted for a while, until I finally asked why Greg was taking so long in the shower. 

“He has gone into Rome without me.  I am just going to make my way to Civitavecchia on the shuttle for a few hours.  Want to come?”

... the police dog tied to the fence ...

Now this would be my first outing since in London.  I thought we would get out of the room faster, but Wyona had been leaning over the balcony as well this morning, longer than I and with a brighter mind.  She had figured out that the white van I had spotted earlier had nothing to do with food at all, but was really a police van; the dog, one that sniffs for drugs.  

By now I, too, had noticed that the 18 wheelers that were lined up by the ship, sometimes six deep, had to be unloaded and each palette sniffed by the dog.  

The policeman would slit the plastic wrapping with a knife.  The dog would run around the palette sniffing through the cut in the plastic, and when the policeman was satisfied with the cargo, he would slap a sticker on the unsplit side of the palette and another forklift would move it to the cargo doors of the ship.

...18 wheelers, fork lifts, ...
... lugs of food to split and check for contraband ...
... police dogs ...
... fork lifts at the 18 wheelers ...
... forklifts after the 18 wheelers ...
... fork lifts inside the ship ...
... passengers on deck 4, also watching ...

I have never seen so much food moved.  

I had to do the math again, since this was our first major loading of food since we left London.  

Three meals a day for passengers and crew – 3,800 passengers and 1,385 crew. 

No one was working harder than the policeman except maybe the dog.  Together they were at work with every load until 5:30 pm when the last 18-wheeler drove away.

This is the second time on this trip when Wyona and I have been near Rome on a Sunday, -- the day that the shops are closed down.  Three travel hours is a long way to go for the tourist sites, when we already spent 7 days, 12 hours a day at them last year.  A little shopping might have taken us there – but the Italians love their Sundays and close their smaller shop doors. And it is those smaller shop doors we like to enter.

The same is true of the street vendors in Civitavecchia, but the walk through these streets was only a 20 minute shuttle away.  Wyona and I strolled by old city walls, moseyed up the deserted main street, made our way up and down the aisles of an old five and dime store that held the cheapest line of every product possible, and where we could not find one thing to buy.  Oh, she ran into some baby-sized clothes pins, only good for a doll house and I saw a Pinocchio key chain, but both of us asked, “Do you really need either of these things?”
The best thing to be said about the store is that I watched a nanny with a crying five year old in her arms, bring her charge into that shop, put her on the floor and let her play with the merchandise in the shelves, which made the child stop crying.  Probably not that good for the merchant, but what a way to tend a baby!

Wyona and I had done a cost analysis on the gelato we wanted to buy in Rome.  Had we gone with Greg, who did take the trip, and made our way to our favourite gelato store by the Termini Metro Station, the cost of the gelato would have had to include the 2-way price of the three hour train ticket to go in and out of Rome, more than we wanted to pay for a cone – even if we have declared it Italy’s best gelato restaurant.  This idea of what the Rome gelato would have really cost us, freed us to stop at every gelato shop along the way in Civitavecchia, no matter what they charged, which was still cheaper than any touristic shop we might have stopped in, had we been in Rome.  I tried lemon and cherry but I am staying with pistachio as the most divine flavour. Wyona was looking for Amarino, of which there was none, but she tried a large scoop of darkest purple grape flavour I have ever seen.  About half way through the cone she stopped me on the street to show me that every small mouthful ended with ten to fifteen tiny seeds on her tongue which she had to get rid of.
“Aren’t you supposed to swallow those,” Greg asked her later.  I think the answer is, if you are running your tongue over the smoothness of the gelato, you are going to have a collection of them in your mouth whether you choose to swallow them or not.

The beach was full of families at play on the sand. Multiples of children were riding the two pink merry-go-rounds or getting their pictures taken by the two-story figure of a marine kissing a nurse.  There were no street merchants as far as we could see down the beach so we walked north along the deserted main street.  I lagged behind Wyona, studying the ironwork on the balconies and watching the different configurations of families out for an afternoon stroll.  We window shopped, paused by a store showing a set of men’s underwear decorated as though he was going to a formal tux  and this would be all he was wearing.  I was wondering, is this purely Italian or a gimmick to get some crazy spender into the store.
On the return to the ship, the same deserted street we had first seen along the beach was now full of vendors – the ones who display their goods on a large sheet on the ground. To describe this scene more fully for just a minute, the sheet is about three feet by four feet, and the four corners of the sheet can be easily gathered together, the rolled goods can now be put the vendors arm so that he can stroll past the police down the street.

So here were the vendors out now – about a street length and a half of them.  No one was shopping or looking at their stuff.  Wyona and I have a lot of experience with this next act.  If one or the other of us takes a closer look at the scarves – a look really in earnest, having the vendors take them out of the plastic packages for us, other women gather around us.
“We have enough scarves already,” said one of two women, gathering in very close to us, and somewhat dissing us.  “Same with us, enough scarves for a lifetime, but that is not stopping us from buying these today,” said Wyona. 

“The same with us,” laughed the other woman.  “We are scarfaholics, as well.  Our kids don’t want us to buy anything for them, not scarves, not anything, but they tell us to buy ourselves into oblivion.  So we aren’t buying these for anyone – just for ourselves.”

“Are you on the cruise ship, as well,”  I asked, continuing, “what was the price they were selling these murano glass necklaces in the jewellery shop on board?  Did you notice?”
“They are a lot cheaper here on the street,” said the one woman, identifying herself now as coming from the Italian Costa Cruise Line, not the boat we are travelling on.

We laugh and walk on, leaving 10 women now, all of whom have stopped and asked us (instead of the merchant) if the prices were good.  The women were now surrounding that merchant, all of them scarves in their hands, and no longer wondering if they should buy, but ... how many they should buy.  That was too much scarf activity around a sheet laid out on the ground for us. 

We strolled on.

“Wyona, when we stop at the next merchant let us make him an offer.  Ask him how large a discount he will give us on the scarves we buy, if we bring a crowd of women in for him.  It seems all we have to do is examine a few of the patterns carefully, throw a some nice coloured wraps over our arms like we are going to buy them, and soon we get squeezed out of our front line positions and have to move on.”

But none of the above is what I wanted to tell you when I started typing this.
As we were strolling back down the same avenue, this time, looking at the Murano Glass instead of the scarves – all pieces being sold at 2 euros a piece (or 3 for 5), we saw the lay-your-sheet-on-the-ground vendors packing up to go, all at exactly the same moment.
“Police?”, we ask the man in whose wares we are examining.  “No, we just close down at 3 pm.”

“Wyona, we have just been told a lie,” I whispered to her. “Vendors just don’t close up when it is 3 pm and they are surrounded with customers.  Ask the next merchant the same question -- what is going on.”

“OK,” he said. “The police only allow us to come out between 1 and 3.  Then we have to go home.  We can’t come out in the morning.   We can come back until 8 pm.”

All I could think of is that the cruise ships would all be gone by 8 pm.  A weird way for the police to patrol the streets. 

Anything goes during the community nap time ... something every tourist should know.

Istanbul

Istanbul --  “To the city”

“These are historic waters we are sailing through,” said Greg as he gazed from the balcony, onto the Aegean Sea.  He was waiting for Wyona to get her shoes on so that they could go to their dancing lessons – today is the rumba.  Wyona had bubble bathed all morning. “Whenever am I going to have a bubble bath in a balcony suite on a boat, again,” she said to us as Greg and I hurried off to the destination lecture entitled Istanbul, not Constantinople.  I met the lecturer while standing in the specialty omelette line-up for breakfast.  “I enjoyed your lecture two days ago.  My brother-in-law and I were saying how we had wished your lecture had been longer when you talked about Corfu.” 

“It is difficult”, he said, “since I am only allowed 35 minutes of presentation time.  I submitted two lectures and the people on board choose the second one, so I have plenty of material.  But the problem on board is just that there are not enough rooms to run all of the programs people want.” 

The people who gathered around the lecturer post-presentation had questions to ask and answers to share.  Most agreed that the best source of information for a traveller is Rick Steven’s Guide to Istanbul, one man there having read 100 pages of it in another Rick Stevens book.  Greg and he went on to chat about good books to read about the history of the Golden Horn.  The lecture had covered the etymology of the name Istanbul, the best reading on it being that in Turkish it sounds a bit like “to the big city”, which would make sense given the rural roots of the people who  finally ended up living in the city.

That was the historic destination lecture.  Later in the morning and better attended was the shopping lecture, highlighting the way to purchase Turkish leather coats (lightweight for their cold winters of 70 degrees Fahrenheit), rugs, coffee (better at waking people up than Red Bull), apple tea, Turkish delight candy (created for a Sultan with a sweet tooth but no way to eat hard candy) and tourist paraphernalia, all decorated with the sign of the evil eye.  I am going to a market with 4009 shops and 16 entrances and exits, hoping I can buy at least one pashmina, a wool scarf that is so fine it will pass through the circle of a wedding ring.

I took my early morning walk.  The sun rose from behind the distant horizon and lifted its face over the right over the water in the time it took me to only walk one length of the boat. I will be that sun rose in less than to minutes.

We had been promised a stormy sea with high winds today.  I wanted to beat the turbulence and the water on the deck by getting up early.  The wind had already beat me to the deck. I had to lean forward to stand upright.  A few chairs slipped across the deck in front of me.  Some of the backs on the deck chairs banged forward. I casually wondered if I shouldn’t have brought a whistle with me, in case I was blown overboard.  Soon I was thinking of wearing a life jacket in case no one noticed I was gone for a few days. 

Wyona and I came back from the Turkish Grand Market without buying anything ... a sad comment on the shopping energy Wyona and I had. Oh, that is not to say that we didn’t find a beautiful red silk scarf, wider than the usual scarves, but when we went back to get it, we couldn’t find that shop again.  That is what is wrong with shopping in a place where there are 4009 shops.  Not that there are that many kinds of shops – there was leather (coats, purses, shoes), gold, diamonds, silver, ceramics and the usual tourist paraphernalia (the evil eye on key chains, ash trays).

We sat down to eat.  What are the chances that someone you had eaten breakfast with would be at the table with  you – but there they were, Frank and Joan on the side of me, and on the side of Greg, a couple that he calls his chicks.  They were fabulous – older women on their first crew and full of lots of interesting chatter. The dinner companions are always interesting because they have had as many adventures in the market as we have had.

Arta

St. Neots, Cambridgeshire - Revisited

“How did you find this place,” I finally asked Wyona.

“I was on-line,” she answered. “I looked around at what was selling at auctions and decided I would try St. Neots Auction. I thought I would have some fun out in the countryside. Tomorrow will be my second time there.”

She was looking at the price of a round trip train ticket the evening before. “Look, Arta, £19 for one way, £22.50 for a return ticket.”

“Must be a Shangri-la,” I thought. Apparently no one wants to leave St. Neots.

Twenty pound bags of turnips were auctioned off among the vegetables and large flats of flowers came next. Then tools and outside equipment. We spent some time looking at the lot numbers inside a covered building, writing down a top bid on each. At least that is what I was doing. Wyona had already hired Peter’s Moving Van to bring her stuff back to London in case she bought anything: a flat rate of £110 for the trip back to London, no matter what she decided to get.

A marble wash stand, double marble, a piece on the backsplash and another on the counter top was the item I saw many people look at – one woman examining the feet of the wash stand, and thoroughly measuring its every dimension with her tape measure. 
When the furniture auction began it was just with the slight tip of the chin downward, a mere flick of the eyelid and that bid went up. 

Afterward Wyona said to me, “Could you tell who was bidding against me, Arta.” I had the advantage on her, a casually by-stander, not feeling the stress of the speed of the bid going up and up.

“The partner of the distinguished looking man over there -- and she looks crestfallen.” 

Another woman bought a gilded triptych 3-sided mirror and some framed pictures. Wyona went over to her and said, “I wanted that mirror.” 

“How about if I give you the mirror for £4 of the £12’s I paid. It is the books I wanted”, said the successful bidder.

Coming back to London, there was only room in the cab of the truck for two people, the driver and Wyona. So at least my round trip ticket did not go to waste. 
I have been wearing a coat in London that has no pockets. Last night I sewed an inner breast pocket into the left side of my coat, a pocket that will fit my map of the streets of central London. I stitched another pocket in the right hip side of the same coat – one that will fit a pen and larger papers I am always digging into my purse for. The new pockets came in handy today because this is my first time finding my way home from an unknown location an hour’s train ride away from London. 
I was well prepared for being out on my own: a map, a pencil and a piece of paper. My kind of happiness.

The speed of the express train surprised me initially. I stood on the platform at St. Neots to watch the train go past and involuntarily reached out to a pole to steady myself, wondering if I was going to be suck under the train when it whipped by. There had been a voice over the intercom warning passengers that the next train was an express and wouldn’t be stopping and then “Woosh!” in less than 2 second it had come and gone. 

Even the local train is fast and the underground is efficient. I was alone and taking all of the correct corners in the tube to get myself on the Victoria line going south. I was home 45 minutes before Wyona. Now that was fun. All alone in London and getting it right.

When Wyona arrived home, she called up to the apartment. The driver did not want to take the time to use the lift on the back of his truck to get the furniture out of his truck and to the street level. He was parked illegally. So with back breaking labour, she and I carried the 2 china cabinets, the 2 drop leaved tables, the marble wash stand and the hand operated tread sewing machines from the platform of his truck to the foyer. I was wondering if we shouldn’t buy a dolly of our own on our next trip to the market. 

Two ethnic working class women, arms laden with package of their own and walking by on the street offer to stop and help us. It was beginning rain. It was beginning to rain and seemed better for at least two of the four of us to get our packages home dry. 

Wyona paid Peter the Mover. We had everything into the foyer, safe from the rain. Two tall able bodied twentyish-looking guys who live in the apartments on the second floor keyed their way into the building. They saw us struggling to get the furniture into the elevator and said that they would take the stairs and leave the elevator for us. I know you can hear me laughing inside.

Tonia had done similar furniture moving on her own for Wyona’s last auction run. I was reminded of that today and I believed that two 60 year olds could accomplish together what one 30 year old had done alone. We got the 2 pieces of furniture finely tucked into the elevator and found that there wasn’t room for the elevator doors to close – only room in the elevator for two of the barley twist tables -- no room on the side of the elevator for either of us. 

Even though everything is an adventure, I was getting tired. I took a Buddha pose and perched cross-legged on top of the table in the elevator. That seemed easier than running up four flights of stairs to catch the elevator doors as they opened on the fourth floor.

The apartment looks strangely the same tonight, even after bringing that furniture home. Wyona says she might make one more St. Neots run before Greg gives up his post here. Why not? The 3 foot high cabinet that the sewing machine is in, is a beautiful piece of furniture that she will use for an end table. The fact that it is a sewing machine is just extra. 

The cost at the auction -- £2.

Love,
Arta

St Neots Auction Centre Link

London East Street Market on a Saturday Morning

Our plan for the day included six markets, starting with East Street. One of the watches Zoe bought there the day before didn’t work. I bought a two inch wide matte and shiny silver bracelet as well yesterday. When I spotted the bracelet in a glass case at the market, I thought it was beautiful. The shape of the beads reminded me of the shape of eye teeth of elephants. 

Today I mean to wear the bracelet every day I am in London to remind me not to buy anything else like it. Over-the-top guaudy, eye-catching and useless, I bought it initially to stop myself from buying more watches at the stall that had attracted Zoe. Invest £1.5 to stop myself spending £30 pounds, I thought. 

The merchants are clever with their chatter bringing the customers closer to their stalls. I was looking for a red purse, but didn’t say anything to anyone about it. However, I must have touched a couple of red bags, because in no time, every red bag the merchant had on hooks or tucked under the counter was in front of me. 

The fellow selling watches to Zoe was having a harder time figuring out who his customer was. For one thing, she takes longer than the regular person to process whether she is interested in an object or not. After she has been asked a question, she may give the answer but after a 3 minute time lag. By the time she gives the answer, the merchant has already asked 10 to 15 more questions and it is hard to go back and figure out which of the questions this was the answer to. 

I asked Wyona what the common denominator was for her when she had finally selected three watches. The colour pink or the shape of a heart or a combination of pink/hearts.

Wyona and I are so cold. Every day, we are cold. I layered up for the shopping trip: a t-shirt, a button up shirt, plus one of Greg’s over-the-head, zip-up-the-neck shirts, my wool coat and 2 scarves. Before I was half way down the market I had bought 5 pair of gloves – one of the pairs a much cheaper model than the same black gloves I bought a few days before on Oxford Street. I will just pick up this as a back-up pair for when I lose one of the first set, I thought. 

A finely woven black and red shawl calf length coat caught my eye. I must have been cold. I paid and put it right over my shoulders. No bag for me. “Let me fiddle with this,” said the shop-keeper as she arranged it over all of those other layers I had put on in the morning. “The pin to attach this at the shoulder is free. No charge. Better to buy the cape from me, than at Harrods, and much cheaper,” she continued, all of the time interspersing our conversation with calls to other customers about the size or the price or under which pile to look to find another colour of the item they were looking at. 

“Do you have a pin that matches,” I asked as she clasped one corner of the cape to my shoulders.

“Only in my knickers, and I am not giving you that one,” she replied.

Warm now, I walked ahead of Greg, Zoe and Wyona for a while, stopping to observe the underwear stall because I saw an old man there, carefully going through a beige cardboard box of bras, fingering a pink one adorned with red roses, sweeping his hand along the inside of the cup. 

“I can’t tell which of these three men is the shop keeper,” I said to Greg, when he caught up. “Look, the two wizened old men behind the counter are lifting the knee length silky underwear, and letting it billow down to touch the table. And the other is interested in the bras. But neither act is attracting customers.”

I had just heard a black man shouting to a white merchant, “Shut up, you dirty black nigger.” I did a double take and had to look again to see who was black and who was white. When he shouted the same phrase again I thought there would be trouble. A younger merchant was sitting cross legged on scaffolding above his merchandise. He looked straight ahead as though he was unaware of the noise. “Looks like our friend has had too much to drink,” Greg said. “I saw him further on down the market.”

The market was also full of a lot of “Praise the Lord for the beautiful day” and “Thanks be to God, days not as good as last years, but still beautiful”. “Hey. man” and “Jesus lives” were antiphonal phrases, as well as a deferential, “Hello boss” to some customers.

One glove seller was singing along with the African music blaring from the next booth – the live singer had a rich deep operatic quality voice. A talent not really lost for he sang as he sold gloves.

Wyona showed me some small flashlights with batteries included in the package. “We need these at the lake. You should buy them for your grandchildren, Arta.” 

“Now why would I do that? They are all so afraid that I don’t have one who would use a flashlight and go out after dark,” I answered.

Zoe was getting hungry by this time and she had been promised chips. Wyona stayed back buying pansies for her window boxes. Zoe looked through the window and into the House of Kebabs but they only sold Mediterranean food. At the shop called African and Caribbean Cuisine, I saw Zoe’s nose was pressed against their restaurant window reading the menu inside. The shop keeper opened the door and told her to come in. She saw the word chips on the menu. I saw the words gizzards, jollope, black-eye beans and rice, saveloy,and spinach and egusi stew. Looked like a place both of us would like to eat.

When lunch was finished and he asked, the proprietor told Greg where to find plantain chips, so we slipped across the street, behind the stall, to another store ... all out, but the shop next door had a large crate of cows feet for sale, and next door, for sale, large cows feet. 

Greg said that the smell of Africa was in the House of Africa and suggested Wyona and I checked it out. Packages of dried anchovies, with 1000’s of eyes looking out of the cellophane package at us. Next to that, ground crayfish, -- a whole new world of ingredients to cook with. Greg was not up to carrying rice home in the 50 pound bags that were sold there, so we went on down the market.

On the bus, on the way home, there was the hum of international languages, none of them with the rhythm of any western European accents that I know. The bus lurches suddenly when the light turns from red to green. I was hanging onto the pole to my side, but my feet didn’t have a stance that gave me equilibrium, swinging me around the pole. Now I know where the idea of pole dancing comes from. Dramatic, but I am not that graceful yet.

Wyona and I dropped Greg and Zoe and the packages off at the flat and slipped up to Camden for the last two hours of the day. “Where you come from all the time,” the clerk in the Indian shop near the main entrance asked Wyona. “I see you every two weeks or so.” 

The women on the second floor among the scarves said the same thing to her. “I know you. You come here often.” And when Wyona asked the price of the scarves, one of the clerks said, “Baal is not here today. He is at the market at Petticoat Lane, but he gives you a special price, so I will call him on his cell and tell him you are here.”

“What is going on with that?” I asked Wyona. 

“I don’t know why they are saying that,” she said. “I slip in and out of these stores and I don’t want anyone to know me. These little merchants are working so hard to make a living in these stalls.”

I was in Camden with a purpose. I wanted to go to a shop that buys and sells gold. The sign says, We Buy your Old Gold, on the Spot. Cash.” I don’t have any gold, but the last time I was in Camden, in that store, I saw large seed pearls on a 48 inch string, a knot between each pearl. I know that when the necklace breaks, there will be one complete string on the floor and not the sound of beads running along the floor, everywhere. My friend, Dani Pahulje, took a course last year where she restrung some pearls of her grandmothers, and the course cost the same amount as the pearls cost that I saw in the store. 

Still I had to go home and think about buying those. I am not one to buy on the spot, but ever since I saw the pearl markets in China I have been thinking about this. The seed pearls are the natural ones, not beautifully matched, and graded ones that you see in the strings of pearls in better stores. This string is full of irregular shapes, a beauty in the uneven naturalness of them, I think. 

I have no idea where I will wear them when I get home. Maybe out to garden. And until I get back to my garden, I will put them on every morning and wear them under my coat as I sight see London. Wyona mocks me and asks me what I am thinking of. I tell her I am having my own kind of pleasure.

I was so tired when Wyona and I finally got home at night that I could hardly get a bite of a donut to my mouth. Wyona was the same. This morning, Greg asked us what happened to both of us last night. Two tired women absolutely disappear at the same time. 

Today, Zoe and I went on a bus tour on our own. She was practising with her new camera – taking pictures of the celebration of the Chinese New Year at Trafalgar Square, shots at St. Paul’s Cathedral, walking across the Millennium Bridge and taking pictures of the tour boats as they passed underneath us, catching the British Telecom Tower and the Tate Museum in the same shot, a shot in front of the Horse Guard at Whitehall, a landscape picture of London Bridge as we were walking over the Thames, and a couple of shots of both of us at the top of the double decker bus. 

We also travelled on one of the heritage Routemaster buses, one of those old vehicles where the driver is at the front, but you get on at the back. The ticket master stands at the open platform until everyone is seated and then comes by to check tickets as the bus is moving along. After all of that, the highlight was of the day for her was the chicken nuggets and fries meal at MacDonalds. Some menus work in every language.

I dropped Zoe off at the flat and went sight-seeing by myself, from the top of a bus #15. I touched in with my Oyster Card and then sat with a map on my lap, checking it often to see which of the sights were rolling by. Trafalgar, the West End, Aldwych, St. Paul’s Cathedral, the Tower of London, and then residential districts as the bus went all of the way to Blackwall, where the Docks begin. 

I was the last one on the bus at its terminal and the only one on the bus as it began its route back. The name of my favourite pub along the way was Hung, Dried and Quartered. If I drank, I would surely have stopped in there.

Love,

Arta